Paint
by OutrageousIngeniousBrilliance
Summary: As you stare at the paints in horror you look down the hall to see a painting on the wall. It's not yours. It's of a tree, a nice, peaceful tree. It's really pretty, full of Tavros brown and Kanaya leaves and your grass.


_Prompt 16/25_

_Paint – n., __a colored substance that is spread over a surface and dries to leave a thin decorative or protective coating._

Paint

It's cold here.

Well, at least to you. Feferi has told you that she isn't cold, but she is wearing a thin sweater and when _Feferi_ is wearing a sweater, how does anyone expect you warmer bloods to even stand a chance. Currently, you are wrapped in a warm jacked that is about five sizes too big on you. It's Equius' and you like to think that it is Equius' love keeping you warm, but not _that_ warm. Nothing has felt truly warm since you've come back alive.

You're not helping your situation by currently sitting on the steel diamond floor. You don't want to stand, your paints are on the floor and you don't want to bend down to get to them, at least not now. Right now you are in one of the meteor's lower floors. The meteor is really small compared to the veil and now twelve trolls instead of six persons of two different species live here.

All of you live on the first two floors (the rest being basements floors) of the meteor, but you asked about the rest of the meteor. Kanaya, really smart Kanaya, told you there were really only five floors of the meteor and most of them were labs. That was when Karkat, your overly grumpy, cuddly leader, told her that there were thirteen levels and she looked so shocked, but in such a lady-like way you wish you could act so elegantly. He told all of you that there was barely anything down there and that none of you should go down there.

They seemed to take his word for it. The only person who lived there was Gamzee, and he lived there before so he got to continue doing so. No one was really going to question him anyway, least of all you. You don't want to be scared of him, but you still have dreams of a club coming down on your face. Equius won't let him near you. He's frightened too, even more than you. From what they tell you, he's better. He doesn't randomly kill people anymore, you're not sure why. You take Karkat's word for it, and don't question it. You're not one to question Karkat on anything.

You asked your leader if he knew a place where you could draw a new shipping wall. You're current one was destroyed at the end of the game and it makes you itch that you haven't updated one in quite a while. While your room was the most logical place for one, it was smaller than what you were used to. He led you down to the ninth floor though a transportalizer and it was just an abandoned hallway with a bunch of labs off of it. The only catch was that you were not to go to any of the other floors, just this one. You wouldn't dream of going to another one.

Equius gets you paint as a gift so that you can start on your project. He doesn't come with you, you don't want him to. There are some things that you don't want him to see, something private from everyone except yourself. That is not how moirallegiances work, but it made you feel a small feeling of freedom from deep within you, so you don't mind. You start with mixing the paints, but you quickly realize that you hate these paints. You are used to the thick consistency of blood from the hellbeasts that you used to hunt back home on Alternia. That wasn't readily available here much to your dismay, you miss trapping creatures. This was a disgustingly thin imitation that the humans used.

You wish that you could alchemize _your_ paint, but you don't have those codes. You continue on with what you have, keeping a smile on your face. It was a minor (_major_) obstacle and you just needed to neglect those nagging feelings in the back of your mind and get to work. You first plan it out in your notebook. The new chart is different than anything you have created before. This time you have humans to add and you can't forget to add them and their weird romance system. While you sketch in your notebook, you troll Jade as she spends her time lounging back on her Earthly home. You wish that you could troll her from your Alternian home and not this boring, cold meteor. The first day you don't paint, just plan and sketch. It is the end of the day before you know it, it's time for you to return back to the above floors, but not before you admire your own work.

"This has to be purrfect." You roll your tongue as you say your thought aloud. As you leave, you swear you hear a sound, a good huntress has a keen sense of hearing, but you chalk it up to random noises. The only thing that could kill you on this meteor is the game (if it just up and decided it wasn't done with you yet) and your eleven companions who live on the first two floors.

You're halfway through dinner when you remember that Gamzee lives down there.

Out of your own safety, you casually bring up the noise around Karkat, who is busy trying to get all of you situated in your new home. He tells you it is fine and the noise is nothing. He tells you specifically that the noise won't kill you. That leaves you feeling like there is a cold front going across your neck. Quickly, you tell your mind to not read too much into it.

The next day you arrive to your tunnel to find new paints in jars waiting for you next to your old ones. They are in crude jars that seemed to originally house jelly but you open them up to check them out. You know that smell and consistency, it's blood. There are twelve different colors, the colors of your friends no less, around you. You're so freaked out you don't know what to do.

As you stare at the paints in horror you look down the hall to see a painting on the wall. It's not yours. It's of a tree, a nice, peaceful tree. It's really pretty, full of Tavros brown and Kanaya leaves and _your_ grass.

You can't breathe as you drop your sketch pad and run to the transportalizer. You step onto it, to transport you right back into the safety of your floor. It doesn't work. You are still on the ninth floor and running straight into a wall. Just in time, you stop yourself. Haphazardly, you make a 360 turn to see where you can go. Your choices are limited to the hallway you already have come from. You start the run down the hall, seeing no other option. A figure comes out of the ceiling, (a _vent_!?) and lands with a sound that rings in your ear. It grabs your arm and stops you from moving even an inch further. Turning around you find Gamzee, looking at you, scars you gave him gleaming right at you. Trying to struggle appears futile as you are too terrified to even try to make your muscles move.

"You okay, Catsis?" The purple blood asks. His voice isn't scary, not the loud, soft combo you've last heard him use. It's not the scratchy, slurred speech you are also used to when you were in the game. It's a scratchy, soft voice, one that sounded sincere.

"The transportalizer isn't working." You say, it comes out in a squeek. Maybe he'll let go. You hope he does.

"Catsis?" He's staring at your shaking arm. It takes a second but he lets go, almost in a surprised manner, not that he was holding on very had after the initial place holding. You don't run. He'll track you down and catch you, you know that. "It's okay. Do you want to get your try on again?" You nod as a response. Willing yourself towards the circular pad, your feet move with him right behind you. You materialize right on the second floor, no one following you.

A couple days pass before you gain the courage to go back. You can't abandon your wonderful wall. Anyways, Sollux said nothing was wrong with the transportalizer (you would ask Equius, but then he would know where you were going and he would oppose). The jars are still there right next to your sketchbook and paintbrushes. The transportalizer works too, you made sure. The painting at the end of hall has been added to, a dark purple skyline. It contains black and white now, which tells you that it can't be real blood up there, at least not the black and white portions, you don't know about the others. There is also black and white added to your jar collection. Taking a second to calm yourself, you breathe in and out before starting on your sketches. It's about an hour later when you smell him, not hear him, waltz down the hallway. You don't hear him even as he gets closer. You don't run, you know better than that now.

"Doing better, Nepeta?" He asks as he stands about two yards from you, a bit hunched over and hands in his pockets.

"Yeah, I was just feeling a little sick last time." You don't lie often, and it trips your tongue up. It's not convincing in the slightest. Gamzee makes no indication that he notices.

"You getting your creative juices flowing?" As long as nothing else flows, you'll be fine.

"Just working on a new wall." You force a smile upon your face as you turn to look at him. He's looking at you curiously, but you're too distracted by his marred face to really notice. Not wanting to stare, you look straight back at your notebook.

"Of love?"

"It's going to be purrfect." Glancing at the paints, you gesture to them. "Did you get these fur me?

"Yeah, I did." He slumps onto the wall next to you, but still keeps a respectable distance. "I don't like to get up and paint with nothing but blood, everything else is just not _right_. It all up and got Karkat freaked, so he worked miracles with the alchemiter."

"Oh, thank you." No real blood to be found. Good, you can breathe again. "You paint?"

"When my head gets all these ideas I do. Painted all the lower floors in all sorts of colors." Gamzee says, as he leans his head to the side towards you. The fear inside of you calms a bit as you return to your work the silence is _almost_ comfortable (but still palpable). Unfortunately, you have made all the preparations you need and you can start painting. You reach for one of your many paintbrushes and dip it in the black to make a grid. You don't start, though. Swirling your paintbrush with your left hand, you gather your courage and hand Gamzee a paintbrush.

"Purrhaps you could help me?"

Comments? Compliments? Concerns?

_After my four month hiatus, this all of a sudden popped into my head. I always felt that Gamzee, if he ever gets his head back in order, would want to become friends with Nepeta again._

Thank you for Reading.


End file.
